Figured I’d put this up sometime, as many of you know 3928 built a really short robot for a strategy that used to be allowed. Due to this strategy we had to make everything really compact.
We also had decided we wanted swerve and no turret (vs turret and no swerve) (neither would’ve been a better idea but hey, now I’ve got rookie kids who know how to pull off a swerve).
This meant we got to make a really compact swerve unit, it was fun.
The bottom bearing arrangement is borrowed from Team 16’s modules.
Aren and Co. over on the Neutrinos have cooked up a swerve module unlike any FIRST has seen before.
“Necessity is the mother of invention” pretty much sums this up for me. They thought “How else could you make a swerve module lighter and smaller?” and this is what came of it.
I’ve been excited about this thing for a long time and am very pleased to see it successfully constructed. Extremely elegant design.
Wow. I hope you guys make it to championships so I can see this in person. Do you have any shots from other angles? I can’t see where you put the drive motor, but I assume it’s on the other side of the wheel?
Wow, this looks amazing! I like the belt tensioning system. A few quick questions:
How do you drive the wheel? It is somehow coaxial, or driven by a motor that rotates with the wheel?
What type of bearring did you use for the wheel steering?
What diameter is the wheel?
Also, I know Aren_Hill famously said that a swerve drive should be built on the offseason and then given a year to sit before putting it on a competition robot. (I’m sorry, I can’t find the quote right now.) What lead you to decide that a swerve was needed to be competitive, despite the fact your rookie team had never done one?
When Aren started talking about this concept, I was convinced it was a joke. That any team - let alone a rookie team - actually built a swerve drive with a CIM motor as an axle absolutely blows my mind.
Until I found out there was a CIM in the middle of the wheel, I was thinking that Aren and company had somehow managed to make a single motor do both the rotation of the wheel and the rotation of the module, and was trying to figure out how that worked.
What is the weight of the assembled module as shown?
How do the modules attach to the chassis?
What is the maximum allowable horizontal rotation, and how do you keep the CIM motor wires safe and secure?
I’m having trouble envisioning the other side of the module. Do you have a pic handy that shows the “back”?
What’s cool is that Aren’s students were the ones who really wanted to pull off the swerve. We knew Aren was crazy before he even proposed the design, but now there’s a whole team of crazies! Glad it’s finally out in public. I hope people finally understand the Aren Hill drillbit meme on Facebook haha.
CD to IKE: “You cannot give credit to the same post twice.”
IKE to CD: “If a 3928 can pull off a swerve module like that, then they deserve double credit.”
Ingenious and elegant! - does that banebots turn it quickly enough? We had a swerve for lunacy but turning reliably (lots more torque reqd on carpet) and quickly the next year was tough. This design is much more compact and more clever though.
Any worries about radial loading on the CIM shaft? Or is is coupled (can’t see the other side)?
Wow. That is one heck of a swerve module. Bravo to your rookies for not only wanting to take on the challenge, but also completing it in a way that is just magnificent. I expect great things from this team. They built one of the best swerve modules their rookie year. Let’s see them do better next year.
Great job 3928! Keep building at a little under the speed of light! (sorry but you’ve been disproved. :()
